The present application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/426,679, U.S. Pat. No. 5,537,554, filed Apr. 24, 1995 and entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Controlling and Communicating With Business Office Devicesxe2x80x9d which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/282,168 filed Jul. 28, 1994 and entitled xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus for Controlling and Communicating With Business Office Devicesxe2x80x9d, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,779, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/902,462 filed Jun. 19, 1992, now abandoned, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/549,278, filed Jul. 6, 1990, now abandoned, the disclosure of each is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the remote monitoring, diagnosis and control of machines using connection- and connectionless-modes of communication and is more particularly related to monitoring, the control and diagnosis of business office machines such as copiers, printers, and facsimile machines. The invention is also related to the use and sharing of data bases containing information about the machines being monitored.
2. Discussion of the Background
U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,779 discloses the controlling of business office devices by a remote diagnostic station. However, the method of communication in this system and other known systems for controlling machines such as business office machines is to establish a connection between the machine and the diagnostic station and to use a connection-mode of communication.
The use of a dedicated communication connection between the machine and diagnostic station is more expensive as compared to the use of the Internet. On the other hand, the Internet has disadvantages in that some forms of communication over the Internet are slow and may be delayed, and have a problem in that the Internet is not a secure mode of transmission (i.e., communications may be monitored by others). In addition, the connection-mode access to an installed machine from the Internet may not be possible because of a security block by the firewall. However, even with the delays of a connectionless-mode of communication over the Internet, the inventor has found that the Internet can still provide a suitable medium for communication for some applications.
Accordingly, it is one object of the invention to provide a connectionless-mode of transmission between a machine and a remote diagnostic station. It is a further object of the invention to provide an alternative manner of communication such as a connection-mode of transmission in the event that the connectionless-mode of transmission is unavailable or not suitable.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a data base which stores diagnostic and operation information of the machine. It is yet a further object of the invention to share the data base information of the machines between various departments such as the service department, a marketing department, a manufacturing department, and an engineering department within a company.
These and other objects are accomplished by a system and method of diagnosing and controlling a machine using a connectionless-mode of communication. An inexpensive connectionless-mode of communication which may be employed by the present invention is the Internet. When a condition exists within the machine which needs urgent attention, a connectionless-mode of communication may be inappropriate. In this case, the mode of communication will be a connection-mode using a conventional telephone or ISDN line.
The machine being diagnosed and controlled may be connected to a conventional local area network (LAN). The local area network has a connection to the Internet through a firewall for security purposes.
When the machine is first connected to the network, the name and address of the machine are registered at the mail server and at the machine by the system administrator as part of installation. This allows incoming Internet e-mail to be routed to the machine by the mail server. Additionally, a connectionless message is transmitted to a remote station, for example, via Internet e-mail, in order to register the existence of the machine.
The invention additionally includes a data base having information of the machine(s) including information of the model, configuration, and capability of the machine(s) so that the remote station will know the machine""s capabilities. The data base is shared among different groups such as between a service group, a marketing group, a manufacturing group and an engineering group in order to have quick and efficient access to information regarding the operating characteristics and reliability of the machines.